Aperture of Time
by redqueensang
Summary: The story of an Amelia Pond who never had a Doctor in a spaceship fall into her garden at seven, who never waited, never fought her way through psychiatrists, and actually left on her own. Now, at twenty-three, working for Henry van Statten, the girl who had time energy seeping into her brain for years is about to meet a Doctor...except this one wears a leather coat.
1. Dalek: Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: I have no part in the BBC or Doctor Who. I'm just a humble fan.

**Author's Note:** I've often felt Amy might have been a more interesting companion than she already was if she hadn't spent years waiting, and/or been with Nine instead of Eleven. This is an interesting twist on that already fairly odd idea. Anyone who has a problem with the fact that I have Amy being quite smart, I'd like to point out that the girl built a sonic screwdriver and took over a hospital with scavenged bits and pieces in _The Girl Who Waited_.

* * *

Amelia Pond was a girl with a chip on her shoulder. Everyone credited it to growing up alone with only an aunt who was hardly seen. The only person her own age who would have anything to do with her was her neighbor Rory. She stood out in Leadworth, all ginger hair, stubbornness and too smart for her own good. No one was particularly surprised when she took off for the States, straight out of A-levels.

The job with Henry van Statten was just too good to pass up for a girl who couldn't imagine going on to university. When she started, she wasn't sure if she believed in aliens, but before long she had become one of the few integral parts of his organisation - or at least harder to replace than his revolving door for assistants and aides. It paid insanely well, and she got to play with most of the bits and bobs that he considered "junk," so she bit her tongue and held back her anger at all his arrogance and condescending nicknames. She certainly wasn't going to find anything better to do, after all.

* * *

The Doctor moved around the console in confusion, eyebrows knit. "That's odd." He pressed a few buttons and with the usual sound, the TARDIS started to rematerialise.

"Huh?" Rose asked, blinking. following The Doctor out of the blue box that had become her home. "So what is it? What's wrong?"

The Doctor looked around at the darkened, seemingly empty room in confusion. "Don't know. Some kind of signal drawing the TARDIS off course." He was puzzled, and reminded strongly of a time long ago.

Rose seemed content to ask her now-usual questions. "Where are we?"

The Doctor sniffed subtly, picking up the pieces he hadn't gotten the time to check while materializing. "Earth. Utah, North America. About half a mile underground."

Rose filed away this information. Certainly not on her list of must visit places but it could be worse. "And when are we?"

The Doctor stepped up to a display case, trying to make out what was inside. This place was too still. "Two thousand and twelve."

There was something so interesting to Rose about landing close to her own time. When she was in Dickens' time, she was just a visitor. Here, this was something she could do in a few years. How might she look in 2012? What was her life like? "God, that's so close. So I should be...twenty six."

It wasn't that he wasn't listening, but The Doctor was trying to figure out the mystery, and Rose hadn't been asking a question. He moved over to the wall, and hit the switch, watching in growing unease and a little amazement as the darkness revealed its' secrets.

Rose looked around as the lights went on, distracted from her thoughts of her personal future. "Blimey. It's a great big museum."

"An alien museum. Someone's got a hobby. They must have spent a fortune on this." The Doctor replied, moving through the cases, pointing things out. "Chunks of meteorite, moon dust. That's the milometer from the Roswell spaceship!"

Rose found this terribly interesting, and spotted something quicker than one could say Raxacoricofallapatorius. "That's a bit of Slitheen!" Rose said in amazement. "That's a Slitheen's arm. It's been stuffed!"

The Doctor however, had spotted something a bit more dangerous, and more familliar than a bit of Slitheen. "Oh, look at you," He said, voice soft with amazement. He could almost hear them now. Delete...Delete... Rose, however, did her job as a companion and shook him out of his old thoughts.

"What is it?"

The Doctor found himself struggling how to explain a Cyberman to someone who never knew them. He settled for the simplest. " An old friend of mine. Well, enemy. The stuff of nightmares reduced to an exhibit." He supposed, he too, was the stuff of nightmares now. "I'm getting old." He felt old.

"Is that where the signal's coming from?" Rose asked, staring at the odd robot head, with what looked like a hoover tube sticking in at either side of it's head.

"Nah, it's stone dead. The signal's alive. Something's reaching out, calling for help." Even as he said it though, he had a hard time tearing his eyes away from the head. He found himself wondering where it had come from. Who had killed it. Or more accurately, if he had killed it. He tapped the glass with two fingers, finally looking away when an alarm went off.

Rose glanced around unbothered as soldiers seemed to pour in from all sides, pressing her tongue into her cheek. She was getting oddly used to life or death situations. They hardly seemed as scary as whenthey had been called to Downing Street. "If someone's collecting aliens, that makes you Exhibit A." She told the Doctor in amusement.

* * *

Amy glanced up in the lift as the loudspeakers announced the descent of Bad Wolf One just as she had started toward the fifty-third subfloor to see what was going on with the alarm. She looked sideways and sighed, canceling the stop at 53 and hitting the button for the first subfloor. If van Statten was back, he would want a report on her latest acquisitions.

She stepped out of the lift and hurried along to catch up to the moving entourage that encircled Henry van Statten at any one time. She came up beside the third assistant just in time to hear the latest aide, Polkowski, say something stupid and be sentenced to a new life somewhere starting with 'M,' because she was in the back, she rolled her eyes, falling into step with the group.

The next aide stepped up quickly, as they had to, and Amy hoped she would do better than the last. She knew how hard it was to survive in Harry van Statten's organisation. She made a face though, at her summons.

"I like you, Diana Goddard. So where's Mary?" Henry asked and despite the annoying nickname, Amy stepped up easily.

"Right here." She answered easily. "It was a bit of a wash in New York, sir, a lot of junk, but I found five artifacts of some value."

"Bring 'em on, let me see 'em." Henry said with a nod. Amy nodded, having anticipated this. "They're waiting in your office, I thought you might like to see them."

"Ah, that's my Mary, always one step ahead." It was the closest thing to praise he usually offered up.

Diana offered up the information Amy was really interested in. "Sir, with respect, there's something more urgent. We arrested two intruders fifty three floors down. We don't know how they got in."

Henry didn't even slow down. "I'll tell you how they got in. In-tru-da window. In-tru-da window. That was funny!" Oh, the bad jokes. The bad jokes were almost worse than the stupid nicknames. Amy barely resisted the urge to wince as orders were given that concerned the thing in the cage. The prize of the collection bothered her. She had been comfortable in the complex since she had gotten her workroom-office, but just knowing that thing was down there unsettled her.

* * *

The Doctor was unsurprised as he and Rose were taken to see whoever was in charge of this alien museum. As they walked in, he noticed a ginger woman showing the man something somewhat familiar.

"What does it do?" The man behind the desk, obviously the man in charge, asked her in annoyance.

"I think it's meant to create or channel some sort of waves." The woman said, as the man turned it over in his hand.

The Doctor knew right away what it was. "I really wouldn't hold it like that." He had some odd hobbies over the years, and while it wasn't a recorder...

"Shut it." The curly-haired aide beside him demanded, rather rudely. He, of course, ignored that suggestion.

"Really, though, that's wrong." The man behind the desk looked up at him, and The Doctor held out his hand. The man leaned forward eagerly, and the Doctor turned it properly. "You just need to be..." He stroked it softlymaking it trill the opening notes of a favourite boyhood song. "Delicate."

The man's eyes wandered slightly with something close to wonder - or perhaps it was just surprise. "It's a musical instrument."

"And it's a long way from home." the Doctor said, with a little smile. That quickly faded, as the man grabbed at it.

"Here, let me." Henry van Statten demanded, tearing it away as he tried to get notes to play, even if it was discordantly.

"I did say delicate." The Doctor reminded him. "It reacts to the smallest fingerprint. It need precision." He was slightly surprised when the brash man improved greatly, though still not quite at a high level. "Very good! Quite the expert."

The man threw it aside. "As are you," he said to the Doctor as the ginger woman rescued the discarded instrument from the floor. "Who exactly are you?"

That was easy enough. "I'm the Doctor. And who are you?"

That arrogant look was back, the look that the Doctor tried to avoid on people. "Like you don't know. We're hidden away with the most valuable collection of extra-terrestrial artefacts in the world, and you just stumbled in by mistake."

The Doctor nodded, that grin on his face again. "Pretty much sums me up, yeah."

The man, obviously with too much money and power, kept talking. "The question is, how did you get in? Fifty three floors down, with your little cat burglar accomplice. You're quite a collector yourself, she's rather pretty."

Rose finally broke her silence, with a glare at the man. "She's going to smack you if you keep calling her she."

This amused van Statten, and his voice picked up a joking tone. "She's British too! Hey, Lady Macbeth, Got a friend for you!"

Amy resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Aye, sir." To the blonde, Amy explained. "This is Mr. Henry van Statten."

Rose was surprised to hear a Scottish accent, but Mr. Henry van Statten had gotten on her bad side. "Who's he when he's at home, then?

"The owner of GeoComTex." Amy replied, examining her lilac-coloured nails.

"Who?" Rose repeated.

Amy sighed, as Mr. van Statten looked offended. How could she explain it to a girl who didn't know about GeoComTex? "The Richard Branson of computers. On steroids." She just hoped that wouldn't offend him. It didn't seem to, as he laughed. "Mr. Van Statten owns the internet." She was still cradling the alien instrument.

There was something about the ginger that Rose didn't like right away, so she sneered, just a bit. "Don't be stupid. No one owns the internet."

Henry smoothly injected himself back into the conversation. "And let's just keep the whole world thinking that way, right kids?"

The Doctor on the other hand, was putting things together. "So you're just about an expert in everything except the things in your museum. Anything you don't understand, you lock up."

Henry was slightly offended by that. "And you claim greater knowledge?

The Doctor didn't raise to the bait...well, maybe a little. "I don't need to make claims, I know how good I am."

"And yet, I captured you. Right next to the Cage. What were you doing down there?" Henry said, convinced he had him.

"You tell me." The Doctor replied, as rose and Amy were left looking between the two men like a tennis match.

"The cage contains my one living specimen." Henry preened.

"And what's that?" The Doctor replied, finally getting to the heart of why he was here.

"Like you don't know." Henry snapped back.

"Show me." The Doctor demanded.

"You want to see it?" Henry asked, not wanting to give in, and yet, at the same time, wanting to show off his prize, which had, at this point, been impossible to show off to anyone, and if this man could tell him more about the jewel in his crown...

"Blimey, you can smell the testosterone." Rose remarked, waving a hand.

"Blokes." Amy said with a shrug.

Henry ignored them, already on the move, and barking orders. "Goddard, inform the Cage we're heading down. You, Mary. Look after the girl. Go curl your eyelashes or braid your hair or whatever it is you girls do. And you, Doctor with no name, come and see my pet."


	2. Dalek: Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Doctor Who. This should be obvious by my ships.

**Author's Note**: Wow! Thanks to everyone who followed and especially to the reader who reviewed. I hope you continue to like this story.

* * *

Henry, for his part, was hoping this so-called expert could do what no one else could - either tell him what it was,or get it to talk where Simmons had failed, though, to be honest, he just expected the Metaltron to kill him. "We've tried everything. The creature has shielded itself but there's definite signs of life inside."

"Inside?" The Doctor repeated, raising his eyebrows. "Inside what?" Before van Statten could answer, if he was even going to bother, the Doctor realised that they had arrived where they were going, as a man in a protective suit greeted them. "Welcome back, sir. I've had to take the power down. The Metaltron is resting."

"Metaltron?" The Doctor repeated, trying to search his ancient brain to see if he had heard of such a name before.

Henry, however, made it clear that he had coined it himself. He was proud of the name. "Thought of it myself. Good, isn't it? Although I'd much to prefer to find out it's real name." Even if he would probably still call it 'Metaltron'.

Simmons was the kind of being that The Doctor didn't like. He had a kind of sadistic glee about him, and thus, when he offered the protective rubber gauntlets to the Doctor with a story about the last man who had touched it, he was even less inclined to take the protective gear. Instead, he shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "I won't touch it then."

Oddly enough, Henry could respect that, but it made his expectations even higher. "Go ahead, Doctor, impress me."

The Doctor stepped through the heavy, bolted security door easily, even as it locked behind him. This was why he had come, but even with his superior senses, it was too dark to make out much in the room, though the tray of torture instruments caught his eye. He felt sympathy for this poor creature, who was probably only trying to protect itself, who might not even know English, or have a way to translate what these apes were saying. "Look, I'm sorry about this. Mr. van Statten might think he's clever, but never mind him. I've come to help. I'm the Doctor."

The only light in the room was a blue glow, but when he spoke, a white light flashed...in time with a grinding, metallic voice. "Doc...tor?"

It was with growing horror that The Doctor recognised that sound, even as he didn't want to believe it. It couldn't be true. That sort of voice had haunted his nightmares for years. "Impossible." He murmured, more out of hope than certainty.

"iThe/i Doctor?" The voice said, much more clearly, just as the light came on. "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

The Doctor took one glimpse of the worn Dalek in chains and ran for the door, pounding it in desperation. "Let me out!"

"You are an enemy of the Daleks. You must be destroyed." The Dalek stated, in that voice. The voice of pure hatred, pure evil.

The Doctor turned from the door, confusion and fear warring against his features as he looked at one of his oldest enemies. He heard it call it's battle-cry one more time until he looked down and realised that it's weapon wasn't working. No plasma shot. His face morphed slightly as he put two and two together and scoffed, with a kind of triumphant glee. "It's not working!" He couldn't help but laugh as the Dalek brought it's gun up and eyestalk down, seemingly just as surprised.

He pushed off the wall. Fantastic!" He said with a kind of manic energy. "Oh, fantastic!" Suddenly, his rage and his anger at the death of his people, at what he was forced to do, use The Moment to destroy his entire family, his entire world, and all his people, leaving him alone in his head had a surviving target. "Powerless! Look at you. The great space dustbin. How does it feel?" He felt himself almost shouting as he made a menacing move toward it.

"Keep back!" The Dalek demanded, in what the doctor would have thought was fear, if he hadn't known that all capability for fear had been removed.

Instead his anger drove him forward, getting the closest he could remember to a Dalek since the first time, on Skaro. He got right in it's eyepiece, grinning madly, gritting his teeth. The thoughts were flitting through his head just as quickly. "What for? What're you going to do to me? If you can't kill, then what are you good for, Dalek? What's the point of you? You're nothing!" He was circling it, unable and unwanting to stop the way he was venting at the monster before him. "What the hell are you here for?"

The Dalek shifted in it's chains. "I am waiting for orders."

The Doctor was slightly confused at that. "What does that mean?"

"I am a soldier. I was bred to receive orders." The Dalek replied, and from outside on the monitor, Henry wondered if it was thinking this 'Doctor' rather slow.

"Well you're never going to get any. Not ever." The Doctor said, enjoying lording this over the Dalek more than he probably should.

"I demand orders! " The Dalek said, sounding closer to irate.

There was a glint in his eye as the Doctor told him why his orders were never going to come. Let this little soldier, this one survivor of his race, feel the same pain the Doctor did. "They're never going to come! Your race is dead! You all burnt, all of you. Ten million ships on fire. The entire Dalek race wiped out in one second."

"You lie!" The Dalek said, head turning slightly to better view the Doctor, who had stoped by one of the poles to which the chains were secured.

"I watched it happen!" The Doctor admitted, again getting right up in his adversary's eyestalk. "I imade/i it happen!"

The Dalek was somehow quieter. "You destroyed us?"

The Doctor grew serious, the continuing talk wiping away some of the glee he had in his voice before as he turned away. "I had no choice."

The Dalek was silent for a moment. "And what of the Time Lords?"

The Doctor was quiet, trying to keep his control as he thought again of that moment, of the screaming in his mind, the pain of hearing everyone and everything he knew burn, the guilt he carried of being the one to do it. "Dead. They burnt with you. The end of the last great Time War. Everyone lost."

"And the coward survived." Intoned the Dalek.

There was a tic at the side of his mouth as the Doctor considered those words. He hadn't wanted too - he hadn't run from the time lock, he had run toward it, but a Dalek could never understand that. No one could. Instead, he focused on the anger, mocking the Dalek. "Oh, and I caught your little signal. Help me. Poor little thing." His voice turned serious again. "But there's no one else coming 'cause there's no one else left."

The Dalek couldn't grieve, but it could recognise that it had no purpose. "I am alone in the universe."

"Yep." The Doctor replied.

"So are you. We are the same."

"We're not the same! I'm not..." Even as he said it, flying again at the bound scourge of so many world, he realised that he had destroyed as many lives as almost any Dalek, and what was worse, many of them trusted him. Some even loved him, or called him a friend. "No, wait. Maybe we are. You're right. Yeah, okay. You've got a point." He took a few steps toward the panel. "'Cause I know what to do. I know what should happen. I know what you deserve." That manic smile picked up again, mimicking the famous battle cry of the Daleks. "Exterminate." He pressed down a lever, and it sent electricity through the Dalek, who did something he had rarely heard a Dalek do.

"Have pity!"

"Why should I? You never did!" He struck down another lever only to be grabbed from behind by several of the menin van Statten's own personal army.

"Get him out." Henry van Statten ordered his guards, who obediently dragged the Doctor from the room, while he shouted that they needed to destroy it.

* * *

Amy led the blonde girl to her office. "Come on in." She said, opening the door. "Just don't touch anything on the far wall, it's where I keep all my experiments."

Rose walked in the room, amazed to find herself in a room filled with organised technology of all sorts and sizes spread all over the room. "Is this all part of the museum?"

Amy ran a hand through her hair and closed the door behind them. "Some of it is pieces I haven't catalogued yet, like that energy rifle over there, some of it is pieces I haven't figured out yet, and some of it is my experiments."

Rose looked around in surprise. "You're allowed to do that?"

Amy shrugged. "As long as I let Mr. van Statten call me stupid nicknames like Mary, smile at his jokes, and find him things at auctions that he can put in his museum, I can pretty much do what I like."

"So what's your name then?" Rose asked, who had honestly thought the girl's name was Mary.

"Oh, sorry, got a bit distracted, yeah?" Amy replied, holding out her hand to the other girl. "Amelia Pond, but you can call me Amy."

"I'm Rose." The blonde said easily, shaking her hand. "So, how'd you end up here?"

Amy shrugged. "Some bloke came up to me after A-levels and offered me more money than I could ever make in Leadworth, so I took it." She grinned. "Sometimes you just have to get out and travel and see the world, yeah?" She grinned, spinning in her office chair. "You've got to know what I mean, you're here, in Utah, long way from home."

Rose laughed at that. "Yeah, the Doctor invited me to travel with him, and I...couldn't say no." She didn't want to say no, either. The Doctor was smart, mysterious, handsome, who had invited her to see the universe. "He's sort of amazing."

Amy tilted her head at the other girl, smirking a bit. "You and him...?"

Rose wondered at the question, but shook her head. Sure, she iwanted/i them to be a couple, but..."No, we're just friends."

"Yeah, sometimes a guy can be the best friend in the universe." Amy said with a nod. "My best friend growing up was a bloke in the village named Rory. He put up with all my adventures."

Rose didn't want to think about friends any longer, it made her think of Mickey. So, instad, she wandered over to one of the experiments. "I mean, all this is cool and all, but Mr. van Statten's got a living creature down there."

Amy shook her head. "I did ask, but after I saw it on the cameras..." She trailed off. "That thing down there is evil." She waved her hand. "I don't even like being near it."

Rose nodded. "Probably better to stay up here with the technology if you're scared of aliens."

Amy wanted to argue, but she couldn't, really. Her only experience with a live alien, and it made her want to stay far away, but she didn't think of it as fear. "You want to see it?" She challenged. "I can hack the camera." She wheeled her office chair over to the keyboard and started typing, half-hoping that van Statten's "Metaltron" would frighten her too. She was getting the idea that Rose thought of her as a flake who couldn't handle her own job.

The image brought up was disturbing, even to Amy.

"It's being tortured!" Rose said in horror. "Where's the Doctor?" Rose knew, without a doubt, that the doctor wouldn't let this happen. They had come here to help the alien.

"I don't know." Amy admitted. "I could try to find him on the cameras, but there are too many subfloors without some idea of where he is."

"Take me down there, now!" Rose demanded.

Amy glared at her. "All right, let's get one thing straight. "I'll take you down there to stop Simmons, but you don't get to order me around."

"Whatever." Rose shot back.

"Can't believe I'm doing this." Amy muttered under her breath. "Come on then."

* * *

The Doctor had been allowed out of the grip of the guards when they reached the lift, though the men were still standing behind him. He wasn't paying attention to them, he was too focused on the threat in the cage. "The metal's just battle armour. The real Dalek creature's inside."

Henry van Statten was listening, but he had other plans already bouncing around in his head. "What does it look like?"

"A nightmare. It's a mutation. The Dalek race was genetically engineered. Every single emotion was removed except hate." the Doctor explained.

"Genetically engineered, by whom?"

There was something in the way he said it that made the Doctor even more on edge. "By a genius, van Statten. By a man who was king of his own little world. You'd like him."

Diana Goddard, the ever-present curly-haired assistant, offered up information. "It's been on Earth for over fifty years. Sold at a private auction, moving from one collection to another. Why would it be a threat now?"

"Because I'm here. How did it get to Earth? Does anyone know?" The Doctor answered, trying to find out as much as he could.

Going through her notes, Diana answered. "The records say it came from the sky like a meteorite. It fell to Earth on the Ascension Islands. Burnt in its crater for three days before anybody could get near it and all that time it was screaming. It must have gone insane."

The Doctor didn't bother to correct her that Daleks were bred insane. "It must have fallen through time. The only survivor."

"You talked about a war?"

"The Time War. The final battle between my people and the Dalek race."

Henry van Statten smoothly cut in, signaling his guards to move closer. "But you survived, too."

The Doctor gave him a harsh look, all pain and anger. "Not by choice."

"This means that the Dalek isn't the only alien on Earth. Doctor, there's you. The only one of your kind in existence." A single nod and the butt of a gun came down hard on the Doctor's skull, and he slumped to the ground, unconscious. "Set up laser exploration room 3." Henry ordered. "I want to know everything."

"Yes, sir." Goddard replied, touching her earpiece and trying not to look at the man...alien...on the floor.


	3. Dalek: Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Doctor Who is still not mine, if it was, it wouldn't be going on fifty.

**Author's Note:** I just wanted to thank everyone who read, favourited, followed, and especially reviewed. All those things make me so happy. Thank you.

* * *

Amy found herself in the lift with Rose Tyler, about to use her clearance to go see the Metaltron. She was not thrilled with this idea, but she had started on this path, and she wasn't going to seem like a coward. Still, she leaned up against the steel wall. "So what do you and this Doctor do? Break in places for kicks?"

Rose glanced over at her. "Not usually. Most of the time we save people. He's brilliant." She smiled happily. "I help him." She gestured slightly. "Aliens are sort of our thing. We travel to the stars."

Amy raised an eyebrow, but didn't dismiss Rose's words like she once would have done. She had seen a lot of extraordinary things. "If you say so."

When the Doctor woke he found himself in a room not entirely unlike the cage, uncomfortably strapped to an articulating table. He licked his lips as he swallowed, unsurprised to find that this was really what van Statten did when faced with something new or different.

* * *

"Oh, good, you're awake." Henry said happily. "Welcome to my collection, Doctor." The smile in his eyes was honest, if a bit disturbing. "We're just going to do some scans. Now smile!"

The Doctor tried not to show the pain he was in as the laser scan that was certainly not from this planet ran over him. He struggled briefly, but relaxed against the table when it was over.

Henry was beside himself with his discoveries. "Two hearts! Binary vascular system. Oh, I am so going to patent this."

If the Doctor thought he couldn't be anymore disgusted with the great stupid ape that was Henry van Statten, he was wrong. "So that's your secret. You don't just collect this stuff, you scavenge it.

Henry was quick to defend himself, as the guilty often are. "This technology has been falling to Earth for centuries. All it took was the right mind to use it properly. Oh, the advances I've made from alien junk. You have no idea, Doctor. Broadband? Roswell. Just last year my scientists cultivated bacteria from the Russian crater, and do you know what we found? The cure for the common cold. Kept it strictly within the laboratory of course. No need to get people excited. Why sell one cure when I can sell a thousand palliatives?"

The Doctor looked at van Statten as though he were the lowest of the low. "Do you know what a Dalek is, Van Statten? A Dalek is honest. It does what it was born to do for the survival of its species. That creature in your dungeon is better than you."

Henry had wanted, on some level, to be friends with the alien, and the words hurt, as much as Henry was possible to be hurt, so he responded the best way he knew how, with pain. "In that case, I will be true to myself and continue."

The Doctor didn't want to go through the scan again, but that desire was secondary to the fact that there was a Dalek, awake, thinking, in this very complex. Desperation crept into his voice. "Listen to me! That thing downstairs is going to kill every last one of us!"

Van Statten shook his head as he blasted the Last of the Time Lords with the laser again. "Nothing can escape The Cage."

The Doctor fought through the pain, needing to get this across to the sociopathic collector. "But it's woken up. It knows I'm here. It's going to get out. Van Statten, I swear, no one on this base is safe. No one on this planet!"

The laser scanner fired again.

* * *

Amy led Rose to the edge of the cage, ignoring the sick feeling in her stomach. Instead, she pulled herself up to her most intimidating, black heels clicking across the floor.

They were met by one of van Statten's soldiers with a gun. "Hold it right there!"

"Really Bywater?" Amy asked, and went for her clearance card. "Level Three access, blah-blah." She flashed the card, and he grinned at her.

"Just doing my job, Miss." Bywater replied.

Amy nodded and opened the heavy door, slipping in after Rose. She took a deep breath and steeled herself for the instinctual revulsion she felt around the Metaltron. "Don't get too close." She advised Rose.

Rose ignored her. Instead, she moved up right next to it. "Hello. Are you in pain? My name's Rose Tyler. I've got a friend, he can help. He's called the Doctor. What's your name?"

"Yes." The Dalek intoned.

Rose looked confused. "What?"

"I am in pain. They torture me, but still they fear me. Do you fear me?" The Dalek asked, spinning his eyestalk at Rose, and then at Amy. "She fears me."

Amy bristled at that. Was the Metaltron like a dog, that it could smell fear? And it wasn't fear anyway, just...a sense of evil. "Don't get any closer, Rose." She advised.

Rose gave a bit of a glare at Amy. "Never mind her. I'm not afraid of you."

"I am dying." The Dalek said, in that grinding voice.

"No, don't say that, we can help." Rose said quickly.

"I welcome death. But I am glad that before I die I have met a human who was not afraid."

"Isn't there anything I can do?" Rose asked, near tears at how sad it was. The poor alien, tortured and locked up to the point where it wanted to die.

"My race is dead, and I shall die alone."

Rose thought of the Doctor, who had lost his entire world, and again, was overwhelmed with empathy. She reached out to touch it, offer it some comfort, barely hearing Amy's yell for her not to touch it, when her hand landed on the case. A sizzling heat touched her hand, and she pulled it away, watching as the handprint glowed gold.

"Genetic material extrapolated. Initiate cellular reconstruction!" The Dalek said, in an excited tone, as Rose took multiple steps back, until she was next to Amy. The Dalek broke the heavy chains holding it, one by one.

"What part of 'don't get too close'did you not understand?" Amy said in frustration. "The 'Don't' or the 'Close?'"

"It was dying! Some of us have a heart!" Rose shot back, as Simmons came into the room, heading for the rejuvenated creature.

Amy would have reiterated again that it was evil, but she was too horrified watching Simmons face get crushed by some sort of vacuum. Amy grabbed Rose and pulled her from the room as Bywater called in Condition Red.

Rose was upset, but she understood that the creature was attacking a person who had tortured it. "It's killing him! Do something!"

"We have to keep it in there!" She said, as the guard was on the radio. It was a chaotic few moments, but everyone still made it out of the vault, save for Simmons, the Dalek being distracted.

"It killed him." Rose said in horror.

The screen crackled to life a few moments later, and everyone was relieved to see someone who knew more than they did on the other side. "You've got to keep it in that cell."

"Doctor it's all my fault." Rose admitted.

"I don't think we have time for whose fault it is." Amy said quickly. "We have to figure out what to do now."

"I've sealed the compartment. It can't get out, that lock's got a billion combinations." The guard said, almost confidently.

"A Dalek's a genius. It can calculate a thousand billion combinations in one second flat." The Doctor said without concern.

As the door opened, the guards started firing, and Rose and Amy backed away, dumly hearing the responses from the office - henry demanding that they not harm the creature, while the Doctor was ordering his companion out of the room.

"DeMaggio, you take the civilians and get them out alive. That is your job, got that?" Bywater ordered

"Yes sir." One of the female soldiers said. "You two, with me." The three women backed out of the room, and before long they were running full tilt through the various hallways, passing guards who were meant to be converging on the Cage. In condition red, all the lifts were shut down, but after the sounds of gunfire had faded away they reached the Yellow Stairs.

"Stairs! That's more like it. It hasn't got legs. It's stuck!" Rose said excitedly.

"It can't be that simple, can it?" Amy asked, even as DeMaggio pushed her up with some yelled order.

From a crest at the top of the stairs, the three waited with bated breath, even as the Dalek followed them into the room. DeMaggio, ever the soldier, tried to reason with it. "Now listen to me. I demand that you return to your cage. If you want to negotiate then I can guarantee that Mister van Statten will be willing to talk. I accept that we imprisoned you and maybe that was wrong, but people have died, and that stops right now. The killing stops. Have you got that? I demand that you surrender. Is that clear?"

Just as they were starting to catch their breath, however, the Dalek spoke, just one word that made Amy's blood run cold. "Elevate." As the Dalek began to rise, so did her nausea, but she forced it down.

"Oh my God." Rose breathed.

"Amy, get her out of here." DeMaggio ordered.

Amy swallowed hard, but nodded. "I promise."

Rose glared at Amy, but then softened toward the soldier. "Come with us. You can't stop it."

DeMaggio shook her head. "Someone's got to try. Now get out! Don't look back. Just run."

Amy felt heard her heart pounding in her ears as she ran, and closed her eyes for a moment when she heard the laser blast and DeMaggio's scream. She swallowed hard, remembering her promise. Whatever it took, she would get Rose out alive. She kept running, pushing the blonde ahead of her.

The floor opened into one of the warehouse bays, and Rose froze when she entered a room with dozens of guns pointed at them.

"Hold your fire!" The squad commander ordered, and Amy was suddenly glad she didn't know his name, because she didn't think he would make it out, and Bywater and DeMaggio were enough dead people on her conscience today. "You two, get the hell out of there!"

They ran for the next hallway, past the guards and soldiers. They barely had a chance to breathe before the Dalek wheeled in, and turned it's eye in their direction. Amy shuddered and pulled Rose farther in, away from the fighting. "Come on."

"It was looking at me." Rose told her.

"Yeah, well, in case you didn't notice, it's been chasing us!" Amy shot back.

"I know, but it was looking right at me. It's like there's something inside, looking at me, like, like it knows me." Rose said, voice softer.

"Yeah, well you're the one who healed it." Amy pointed out. "It does know you. It fed on your DNA or something."

"You mean that thing's part me?" Rose asked, a little horrified.

"Probably." Amy said, with a shake of her head. "Now come on, we have to keep going!"

* * *

Henry van Statten was finally reaching a point where he was becoming scared for his life. He had selected his guards and soldiers and paid them well because they were the best he could lure away from the military or private firms. To see them decimated made him scared for his own life. "Perhaps it's time for a new strategy. Maybe we should consider abandoning this place."

Diana Goddard shook her head. "Except there's no power to the helipad, sir. We can't get out."

The Doctor was considering something he really didn't want to even think about - again. "You said we could seal the vault."

Henry nodded. "It was designed to be a bunker in the event of nuclear war. Steel bulkheads."

Diana was being sensible again. "There's not enough power, those bulkheads are massive."

"We've got emergency power. We can re-route that to the bulkhead doors." The Doctor said, trying to find some answer, sliding all too easily into a wartime perspective. It wouldn't be Gallifrey again if he could stop it.

"We'd have to bypass the security codes. That would take a computer genius. "

Henry considered reprimanding his assistant, but refrained. "Good thing you've got me then, the Richard Branson of computers on steroids."

The Doctor raised an eyebrow. "You want to help?

"I don't want to die, Doctor. Simple as that. And nobody knows this software better than me."

"Sir," Diana said, gesturing to the screen, where the Dalek had appeared.

"I shall speak only to the Doctor." The Dalek bleated.

The Doctor moved to be better centered in the screen. "You're going to get rusty."

"I fed off the DNA of Rose Tyler. Extrapolating the biomass of a time traveller regenerated me." The Dalek informed them, making Henry and Diana look at the Doctor.

The Doctor ignored them. "What's your next trick?"

"I have been searching for the Daleks."

"Yeah, I saw. downloading the internet. What did you find?"

"I scanned your satellites and radio telescopes."

"And?" The Doctor asked, knowing the answer. He had searched for survivors, he knew the need to look even when you knew better.

"Nothing. Where shall I get my orders now? " The Dalek demanded angrily.

"You're just a soldier without commands." The Doctor said, almost shrugging, but not quite.

The Dalek sounded angrier. "Then I shall follow the Primary Order, the Dalek instinct to destroy, to conquer."

The Doctor resisted the urge to growl, but he got angry as well. So many lives had already been lost today. "What for? What's the point? Don't you see it's all gone? Everything you were, everything you stood for."

The Dalek paused slightly. "Then what should I do?"

The Doctor took a breath, boiling it down to what had to happen. "All right, then. If you want orders, follow this one. Kill yourself."

The Dalek sounded offended at that. "The Daleks must survive! The Daleks must be rebuilt! The crack in time brought me here with a purpose."

"The Daleks have failed! Why don't you finish the job and make the Daleks extinct. Rid the Universe of your filth. Why don't you just die?" The Doctor roared, what he now knew he would have to do if this failed making him even angrier.

Everything was silent for a long moment. "You would make a good Dalek."

The Doctor was quiet for a moment, shaking slightly as he came to terms with those words and the next ones to issue from his mouth. "Seal the vaults." Before long he was sitting at a dual computer display opposite Henry van Statten, working to close the vaults and break his hearts all over. His TARDIS was down there, Rose was down there.

Henry was typing as fast as his fingers could move. " I can leech power off the ground defences, feed it to the bulkheads. God, it's been years since I had to work this fast."

"Are you enjoying this?" The Doctor asked in something akin to disgust.

Before they could argue, Diana pointed out something that the Doctor didn't want to think about. "Doctor, she's still down there."

* * *

Rose's phone rang as they continued spiraling up the stairs, one flight after another. "This isn't the best time."

The Doctor's voice on the other end was serious. "Where are you?"

"Level forty-nine." Rose answered with a quick glimpse at the wall.

"You've got to keep moving. The vault's being sealed off up at level forty six." The Doctor said, begging her mentally to make it, tor un faster.

Rose felt a growing horror. "Can't you stop them closing?" She felt Amy's head turn and look at her, before the ginger girl pushed her back to make her move faster.

"I'm the one who's closing them. I can't wait and I can't help you. Now for God's sake, run."

Amy and Rose ran harder. rose could feel her muscles aching and she had a stitch in one side, but she barely let it register. Her lungs were burning, but there was only one option, to keep going and go faster. "We're nearly there. Give us two seconds." Rose barely heard the 'I'm sorry.'

As they made the final turn, Amy could hear the bulkhead warning klaxon and she sped up, pushing the blonde in front of her. She had made a promise damn it. She could see the doors starting to close as they got closer, and her mind quickly did the math, knowing that both of them couldn't fir through. So, she did the only thing she could, and shoved the blonde girl with all her might, hoping her instincts were good enough to roll when she hit the ground.

Rose was so surprised, her mobile fell out of her grip and skidded across the floor, even as she rolled under the door, gymnastics saving her life again. It took her a minute to realise what happened and she turned to bang on the steel door that had sealed behind her. The other girl had saved her life.

Amy picked up the fallen phone, just in time to hear the voice on the other side speak again. "Rose, where are you? Rose, did you make it?"

Amy smiled. "She made it, Doctor, I promised someone she would, but I didn't." She chuckled a little. "Guess that's what I get for wearing heels to work."

The Doctor was surprised by the voice. "You're the Scottish girl."

"Amy." She replied, deciding that if she was going to die, her name was going to get out there. She wasn't going to be 'Mary, Queen of Scots' or 'Lady Macbeth.' "Amelia Pond. And Doctor? If all she said was true...say hello to the stars for me, okay?"

She clicked off the phone, because if she was going to scream when it killed her, no one was going to hear it, and turned to face the Metaltron.


	4. Dalek: Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I still do not own Doctor Who and make no money from this creative playing in the BBC's sandbox.

**Author's Note:** I want to thank all of you who have read and reviewed despite the unusual premise of this story. Every review makes my day. Like cookies!

* * *

Amy took a deep breath, resisting the urge to close her eyes. She had always said she would live like she would die young, and she couldn't say she never went anywhere or did anything. She could still hear Rose pounding on the bulkhead behind her.

The Metaltron approached, it's weapon shifting from one position to another. "Exterminate! Exterminate!"

Seconds ticked by, and nothing happened. Amy looked the Metaltron over slowly. "Are you out of ammunition?"

"I am armed. I will kill. It is my purpose." The creature said.

"So why haven't you?" Amy asked, as the pounding stopped.

The Dalek's lights flashed wordlessly for a moment. "I feel...I feel her...she is afraid of you being harmed. She feels...grateful...she feels...something." The voice sounded lost. "Daleks do not fear. Must not fear!" The shots she was expecting and finally came, but went wide, hitting either side of the door. "I am contaminated!"

Amy swallowed hard, mouth running ahead of her mind. "What if I could fix it?"

The Dalek made a whirring, grinding noise. "You would be useful. You would be made Dalek. Used to rebuild the Empire."

Amy swallowed hard, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "Just what I've always wanted."

* * *

"Sir!" Goddard said, from where she was watching the screens. "It's moving!"

The two men moved from confronting each other to working in tandem again surprisingly quickly. "Where's it going?" The Doctor asked, tracing it's movements down the hallway. "What's everything down there it could be interested in?"

Van Statten shook his head. "Research, mostly, the hard copies of all our discoveries, the cafeteria, the lab..."

"The lab!" The Doctor said with energy, as Goddard pulled up the schematic of the room in question. "It must be planning something."

Rose walked into the office, looking rather dejected. She turned to her Doctor, blue eyes filling with tears. "She pushed me under the bulkhead so I would make it." Rose had seen people die on her adventures before, but something about this one bothered her more than watching Cassandra explode, or even Gwyneth, killed by the Gelth she thought were angels. "It's all my fault, I just felt so bad for it."

The Doctor looked up briefly. "Rose, you have so much empathy for others, even a Dalek. Don't blame yourself." He then turned back to van Statten. "What do we have if it blows the bulkhead with something from the lab?"

Goddard shook her head. "All the guns are useless, and the alien weapons are in the vault."

Rose, eager to help undo the harm she had caused, quickly corrected them. "Amy said she had an energy rifle in her office she hadn't gotten around to cataloguing yet."

The Doctor nodded. "Rose, you go get that energy rifle, you saw where it was."

Rose nodded unable to help apologising again. "I'm sorry."

The remaining guards let her leave, but mere seconds later, an image popped up on the wall-mounted screen. "Sir!" Goddard said pointing.

The Doctor let out a laugh of surprise. "She's still alive!" He looked at van Statten. "I thought she just collected artefacts for you?"

Henry shrugged. "She asked for lab access instead of a bonus last Christmas. Said it could help her determine where things came from and what they did better."

* * *

Amy swiped her card at the lab, before stepping back and allowing the Dalek to go first. It had been an unbearably silent walk through a corridor to reach the lab. She hadn't been in a particularly talkative mood, trying to figure out some way to get herself out of this mess. Rose's emotions had affected it, and it had said that they were not meant to feel, maybe if she could alter it's brain chemistry or overload it with an emotion, it would break down, maybe even explode.

What was the worse that could happen? Oh right, it could continue with it's new plan of rebuilding a robot empire using her. She had no desire to be a Dalek Eve, thank you very much. So, she licked her lips, and pulled on her lab coat. "Right, so..." She said slowly. "How are we going to do this?"

"You will rid me of these human emotions." The Dalek bleated, lights flashing.

"Right, but I can't exactly inject you through this." Amy replied, knocking on the case, and making the Dalek's head whirl.

"No injections. Do not trust you." The Dalek said, sounding angry at the suggestion.

Well, there went Plan A, B, and C. Time to pull something out of her back pocket. "No injections it is." She moved over to the computer and began using the camera system, doing the reverse of what she had done in her office - rerouting image and sound to the main office without connecting the lab for two-way visual or audio contact.

She pulled on the blue latex gloves, and silently hoped for her own sake that she could pull off what she was going to attempt. She carefully worked across the lab, figuring that the worst that could happen from this was her own death, or maybe Dalek roid rage, but it was her only chance.

* * *

"In that lab, the Dalek could destroy this entire complex!" Goddard said in realisation. "What is she doing? What has she done?"

The Doctor sighed slightly. "We're going to have to destroy it once and for all, if Goddard's right."

"My lab is kept fully stocked." Henry said, for once not sounding proud of his expensive toys. "How can we destroy it? It withstood my army!"

The Doctor was silent for a long moment. "I don't know yet, but I'll come up with something." He started barking orders, and it said something that no one, not even van Statten, argued. "Goddard, van Statten, you find out everything we have as an asset on this level and between us and the sealed bulkhead. Don't leave out anything, not even a teaspoon!"

Rose rushed in just as he finished saying this, carrying a large plasma rifle.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" He said excitedly, taking the large weapon from Rose. "Rose Tyler, I could kiss you!"

Rose grinned back at him. "I'll remind you of that after this is all over."

* * *

It was odd to Amy how similar this was to her second day in a school with a chemistry lab. She had convinced Rory to sneak in with her that night, and while he waited at the door like a nervous guard parrot, she had created a very powerful stink bomb she had slipped in the auditorium and set off the next morning. That was a good memory. This was far less fun. She'd give anything to have Rory and his silly hair standing at the door instead of the homicidal robot with a deadly plunger at her back.

Taking a deep breath, she set the chemical mix on a burner, closing it and setting it to superheat. She faced one of the hidden cameras, ran a hand through her hair and smiled sadly. "I really hope this works." She swallowed hard, and went to the computer, switching the ventilation in the lab over to the quarantine subsystem settings. It would switch the ventilation to circular filters, and then she turned off the filters. "Here we go!" She took a deep breath and picked up the superheated mixture, dropping the flask on the floor, watching as oddly blueish gas quickly filled the room.

"What is this?" The Dalek bleated. "What have you done?!"

"Got to treat you somehow, if I can't do it via injection, it has to be administered through the air." Amy said with a shrug. "You have to breathe in there, right?" She felt herself getting dizzy, her mind getting clouded, but she had to hold on, just for a little bit longer.

The Dalek started making a wheezing, high-pitched noise, the case shaking and plunger flying up slightly.

Amy held on, just a little longer, until she realised that the Dalek was sobbing, and then slid down the wall to the floor, letting the gas she had created overtake her with grief. She had made a smoke bomb designed to create grief - and it had worked. She had made the Metaltron cry.

* * *

When the lab door flew open, the five people, headed by the Doctor armed with the energy rifle, found an unlikely scene. The smoke made them cough, because all the ventilation had done with the filters turn off was recirculate the gas through room over and over again. Amy was slumped against the wall, facing the harsh fluorescent lights, shoulders shaking with tears pouring down her face.

The Dalek was making that same wheezing sobs, but the shaking had stopped. Instead, it just kept saying "Skaro," "Crucible," and "Davros."

"What's it doing?" Van Statten demanded.

"I think it's crying." Rose said in disbelief.

The Doctor lowered the gun and moved over to Amy. "What did you do?"

Amy took a deep breath. "Activated the anterior cingulate cortex, orbitofrontal cortex, and vagus nerve." She let out a choked sob. "Rose made it feel. I made it grieve." She paused and looked at her bare feet. "And then I threw my shoes at it."

The Doctor hugged her tight. "Oh, you are fantastic!" He felt his own respitory bypass kick in, and saw everyone else start to tear up, Goddard lowering her head.

He moved toward his enemy again, but Rose had beat him too it.

"What did you do to me?" The Dalek sobbed at the girl, kneeling near it. "What have you turned me into?"

"I don't know." Rose said sadly. "Why did you do it? Why did you kill all those people?"

"I am a Dalek. The Daleks must kill."

The Doctor shook his head. "You're not even that. Rose did more than regenerate you. You've absorbed her DNA. You're mutating."

"Into what?" The Dalek demanded. "I can feel so many ideas. So much darkness. So much pain...I feel...sadness. I feel...too much. Rose, give me orders. Order me to die."

Rose shook her head, even now unwilling to see anyone else die. "I can't do that!"

The Dalek shook in it's case. "This is not life. This is sickness. I shall not be like you. Order my destruction! Obey! Obey! Obey!"

Rose swallowed as the Doctor put a hand on her shoulder, and summoned up what strength she had, noticing out of the corner of her eye as Goddard and van Statten moved out of the lab. "Do it."

The Dalek paused, and if the Doctor felt something, it was not exactly helpful. "Are you afraid, Rose Tyler?" The creature asked, lights somehow dimmer than before.

"Yes." Rose admitted.

"So am I." The Dalek admitted.

The Doctor shielded his eyes slightly, holding Rose to him as the Dalek surrounded itself with a forcefield, and safely imploded.

The Doctor quickly set to turning the filters back on, turning on the fans to circulate the gassed air out of the room, letting out a click as his respiratory bypass turned itself off. He comforted Rose with an arm around her shoulders, and before long they found themselves face to face with a group of guards holding van Statten hostage, and Diana Goddard looking like an avenging angel.

"What the hell are you doing?!" van Statten demanded.

Diana Goddard didn't even pause. "Two hundred personnel dead, and all because of you, sir. Take him away, wipe his memory, and leave him by the road someplace."

Henry showed real fear for the fifth time that day. "You can't do this to me. I am Henry van Statten!"

"And by tonight, Henry van Statten will be a homeless, brainless junkie living on the streets of San Diego, Seattle, Sacramento. Someplace beginning with S."

The Doctor shook his head, and led Rose back down to the museum floor where they had stored the TARDIS.

Only to find the ginger girl wrapped in a warm blanket to guard against shock, circling the police box.

The Doctor had to grin. "Remind you of home?"

"A bit." Amy answered, smiled at them. "Are you too off to see the stars now."

"Yep." The Doctor said, walking past her to open the doors, Rose popping in behind him.

Amy couldn't help it, she dropped the grey wool blanket and stepped in behind them, amazed at the size and scope of it all. The great coral struts, and the room which was so much bigger on the inside.

Rose looked at her suspiciously, and then at the Doctor, who didn't seem bothered by the fact that someone else was in their TARDIS. "Doctor..." She said, gesturing slightly.

The Doctor turned slightly and smiled. "Well? What do you think?"

Amy looked around, gently touching one of the coral struts. "It reminds me of coral."

The Doctor laughed. "You told me to say hello to the stars. How would you like to do it yourself?"

"Doctor?" Rose said, voice rising. "You and I travel together."

"Plenty of extra room." The Doctor said easily.

"Plus she's quite pretty." Rose observed jealously.

"I hadn't noticed." The Doctor said easily.

Amy watched the two, shaking her head at them. "You are so sure that I'm coming."

"Yep." The Doctor replied.

Amy tilted her head. "Why?"

"Because you're the lone Scottish girl in an American complex, and I know how that feels." The doctor said sadly. "In fact, the only Dalek died, partly thanks to you - I'm the only one left. I win. How about that?"

Rose frowned, not liking the look on Amy's face. "The Dalek survived. Maybe some of your people did too."

The Doctor shook his head, reaching out for Rose, and putting an arm around her shoulder. " I'd know. In here." He tapped his head, and looked exceedingly lonely. "Feels like there's no one."

"One more such victory." Amy said softly.

Rose looked at her oddly, not understanding the quote. "Well then, good thing I'm not going anywhere."

Amy gave her a look, but didn't comment. "I'm going, if you'll still have me."

The Doctor's face exploded in a wide smile. "Fantastic!" He gestured down one of the corridors. "Down that way, off you pop. I'm sure the TARDIS will have made a room up for you by now."He grinned at Rose. "You'll show Amy the ropes, won't you, Rose?"

Rose smiled, but it was definitely plastic. "Of course, come on Amy." As Rose led the girl who saved her life down the twisting corridors of the TARDIS she found herself wondering when her adventure with the Doctor suddenly had room for three.


	5. Green Grass: Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Doctor Who, I just play in the sandbox.

**Author's Note:** Thanks again to everyone who read, reviewed and/or followed. Cookies for all!

* * *

The Doctor was surprised when late one night, returning to the console room, he found Amy sitting on the jump seat, painting her nails like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Up a bit early, aren't you?" He asked, curious. He knew his human companions required much more sleep than he did, and watched the ginger-haired girl in interest. She had taken to the TARDIS much easier than a lot of companions.

Amy looked up from her yellow gold nail polish and attempted to smile. "Couldn't really sleep." She admitted, shrugging slightly. "It's all a bit hard to get my head around. I smoke bombed the Metaltron, and now I'm in a time-machine that's also a spaceship."

"Yes," the Doctor admitted. "You did, and yes, you are." He moved over to the jump seat and sat down beside her, tugging on the belt of her striped robe. "You okay with that?"

"I think so, yeah." Amy replied. "It's just...space, really? I'm really in space?"

The Doctor chuckled slightly, even in this generation, born from grief and war, he had to admire the fascination of the companions. It was part of the multitude of reasons he invited people with him on his journeys. He stood up, and went over to the console, flipping a few switches to extend the oxygen, before moving over to the door and, looking over his shoulder at her, holding out a hand. "Well, come on then."

Amy blinked. "What?" Still though, she stood and moved to take his hand, eyes excited.

"Space!" The Doctor replied, squeezing her hand as he opened the doors to the TARDIS into the cosmos.

Amy stared out the door, getting closer. "Wow." She breathed, everything else forgotten.

The Doctor grinned, sitting down in the doorway. "Welcome to the universe, Amelia Pond."

Amy giggled, putting a hand over her mouth as if to contain her glee. After a moment, she slid down to sit beside the Doctor, forgetting that she was in her nightie. "It's gorgeous." She breathed.

* * *

Rose woke in the softness of her bed from a lovely dream. She stretched slightly and got ready for the day, throwing on some trousers and one of her cutest tops before heading towards the console room to find The Doctor and remind him about breakfast. When she arrived, though, she found the room empty. That was odd.

She moved through the TARDIS, following the hum of the machine like a game of hot and cold. She found herself at the kitchen door and opened it, thinking for one brief moment that the Doctor had decided to surprise her with breakfast, only for it to falter a moment later.

Somehow, during the night, she had forgotten about Amy. Amy who had saved her life. Amy who she _wanted_ to like deep down, but she kept struggling with because, to her, three was a crowd.

"Good morning, Rose!" The Doctor said with a bright smile, nursing a cup of tea. "Amy's made us a full breakfast. How's that for handy!" He turned to Amy. "Rose has trouble with eggs."

"Lucky I've been cooking for myself since I was a kid." Amy said with a shake of her head. "We've got bacon, eggs, sausages, porridge, tattie scones, tea, toast, and grilled tomatoes, what would you like?"

And that was how Rose found herself pushing porridge about in a bowl, suddenly not hungry, and faking smiles in between bites. Pushing the bowl away, she decided to focus on everything but Amy. "So what are we doing today, Doctor?" She asked, flipping a blonde braid over her shoulder. "Back in time? Another planet?"

The Doctor considered this. "Mystery tour! Why not put her on random?" He finished his tea. "I'll let you girls finish while I go see to the arrangements.

Amy grinned at Rose, throwing a tea towel in the sink with empty plates, and leftovers in the space-age icebox. "Mystery tour! Can you believe it?"

"Yeah, I can." Rose said with a plastic smile.

* * *

The Doctor brought the TARDIS to a stop with relative ease, probably because he had placed it on random, rather than telling her where and when he wanted to go, and checked the scanner carefully, frowning a bit. He probably shouldn't be surprised that his ship decided to take them to a historical event, part of the fun of time travel was watching history happen, so he put on a smile as Amy and Rose arrived in the console room, apparently having stopped off to let Amy get dressed.

"Outside that door, it's November, 1963." He said with a grin. "To the wardrobe, ladies, we're going to see history happen before our eyes."

"1963?" Rose repeated.

"Wardrobe?" Amy asked in confusion.

"Rose, you'll show Amy where the wardrobe, is, won't you?" The Doctor said in amusement.

"Sure." Rose replied, smiling again.

* * *

"Oh my god." Amy said, as she stepped into the wardrobe. It was huge, with racks and racks of clothes, jewelry, accessories, shoes, and things she didn't recognise but she assumed were meant to be worn. "How do you find anything in here?"

As she asked, the lights changed colour over a section helpfully.

"Err, thanks?" Amy said, blinking. She had been asking Rose, but that worked as well. She heard a hum in response and took it as a kind of 'you're welcome.' Either that or it was laughing at her.

Rose took the other view, and giggled at her, heading over to the racks of dresses. She reflected briefly on how rarely so far she had gotten to dress up. The last time had been Dickens and the Gelth, which weren't exactly the fondest memories - and at least in the sixties she wouldn't be stuck in a corset!

* * *

"There you two are!" The Doctor aid as they reappeared.

Amy, dressed in a navy blue and deep yellow suit, blinked at him. "Aren't you going to change?"

"I changed my jumper." The Doctor defended, holding his arm out to Rose.

"You'd never be able to tell." Amy said, shaking her head, following the two experienced ones out of the TARDIS.

"So, 1963." Rose observed as they stepped out into the sunshine. "Where?"

the Doctor sniffed thoughtfully. "Texas." He observed after a moment. "United States, either Dallas or San Antonio."

"I'm in 1963." Amy boggled, looking around at the streets full of cars that should be antiques that were sparkling new, and all the people in the same kind of clothes she was wearing.

"My favourite year, 1963." The Doctor replied, squeezing Rose's hand slightly. "When I first left Gallifrey, Susan and I settled on Earth in 1963 in between our adventures. She wanted to experience human school." It was odd, usually he avoided talking about Susan, or anything about Gallifrey and his past, if he could help it. The sting was less here, somehow, though. he considered for a moment that it might be because he knew how happy Susan was in the Coal Hill School in this year so long ago in his time stream. It could be that, or maybe having the chance to vent at the Dalek had acted as some kind of catharsis.

"Who's Susan?" Amy asked, curiously.

The Doctor shook his head, looking to the side. "She was my youngest granddaughter. She came with me when I left Gallifrey, she loved humans."

"Granddaughter?" Rose repeated in shock.

"What happened to her?" Amy asked, voice soft in understanding.

The Doctor shook his head. "She settled in the twenty-second century with a nice young man, adopted some children, had another." He swallowed hard. "I always swore to go back more often, but when the war happened, she went home and..." He stopped, unable to say it, even if he was doing better. He shook his head. "My first human companions were her teachers, who followed her into the TARDIS." He grinned. "I may have sort of kidnapped them. They teach at Cambridge now, in your time."

Rose was getting more and more upset. When The Doctor had invited her onto the TARDIS she had assumed that she was the first companion he had ever had. "How many companions have you had?"

The Doctor considered this, as Amy moved up beside them and they began walking around the city. "Oh, let's see...counting Susan, and the UNIT boys from when I was exiled to Earth - really should stop by and see the Brigadier soon, thirty-one, including you two."

Rose was feeling a bit sick to her stomach as the list went on. She wasn't special at all, just the next in a long line of humans aboard the TARDIS. Was Amy meant to be her replacement? "What happened to all of them?"

The Doctor sighed. "Some left me, some died, some lost their memory when the Time Lords decided they knew too much. The UNIT boys just continued on Earth, though, while I resumed travelling as soon as I was allowed. "One of my companions, Leela, ended up marrying a Time Lord and staying on Gallifrey."

He finished his list with a smile at Rose, missing the significance of how pale she had gone. "And now I have you and Amy."

"So we're just the latest in a long line, is that it?" Rose asked, fighting the gnawing feeling in her stomach.

The Doctor looked over to her in confusion, still half-lost in old memories. "Sorry what?"

"You just pick up humans randomly, is that it?" Rose asked, face flushing.

"Ooh, look, lockets." Amy said, trying to change the subject, not even bothering with subtlety, because she had seen enough jilted girls to see what was about to happen. "Rose, look at the lockets." Her tactic, however, was ignored.

"As opposed to what?" The Doctor asked, dropping Rose's arm brows knitted in confusion.

"I thought you and me were..." Rose choked on the words, watching Amy's eyes widen at the side. "I've obviously got it wrong. I've been to the year five billion, but this? This is the real future, isn't it? You just leave us behind, you replace me with a leggier model!"

"Oi!" Amy said, shaking her head. "Leave me out of this!"

The Doctor stuck his hands in his pockets. "I don't age like you do, Rose. I don't die, not really. When Time Lords are dying they regenerate into a new body and continue on - but humans don't. You wither and decay. I've been travelling for nine hundred years, I can't spend the rest of my life with you. I have to live on. I have to survive. The curse of the Time Lords." He tilted Rose's face up, looking into her eyes, glazed over with tears. "Amy is not here to replace you. No one is replacing anyone." He swallowed hard. "I want you to stay, as long as you want to stay, until you're old and grey if you decide too, but if knowing this is too much, I can drop you off with Jackie."

Rose swallowed hard, her head swimming with all this new information that she had to come to terms with that she had never considered before, not really. "I'm staying." Rose swore. "I'm not leaving you." Her place was by The Doctor's side, no matter what. She would be better than all those other companions. She would stay - and what was more, she would find a way to stay forever. Somehow.

Amy was perhaps the only one well-aware of their surroundings, particularly as an old lady that reminded her of her grandmother 'tsk'ed at them.

"Guys, I'm glad you've worked this out, but we're kind of standing on a streetcorner in the 1960s, and people are _staring." _She hissed softly.

The Doctor shook himself out of it and dropped his hand, shoving his hands in his pockets instead. "Quite right, whole new place to explore. Let's go!"


	6. Green Grass: Chapter 2

**Disclaimer**: Doctor Who and all characters therein belong to the BBC and related entities. I am making no profit from this sandbox adventure.

**Author's Notes:** Big thanks to everyone who read, reviewed or followed! Also, to those concerned, no I am not going to turn Rose into a harpy. This is not a Rose-bashing story. Her confrontation in the previous chapter was lifted in part from _School Reunion_. She's struggling right now is all. This chapter is half the size of my previous chapters and I apologise for that, but this adventure is slightly shorter. :) I hope you still enjoy it.

* * *

The Doctor was relieved when Rose said she wasn't leaving. He wasn't ready to say goodbye to another companion, he had said goodbye to Grace too recently for that. Still, Amy had a point, and he stepped back. "Come on, girls - 1963 awaits."

Rose turned right, but Amy turned left, leaving The Doctor in the middle, as both looked at him expectantly. While he might not know how to deal with a lot of human problems, this he had experience with, at least enough to navigate the minefield. "Straight ahead, you two, history in the making!"

He led them to a long street where people were milling excitedly with video cameras, period cameras, and trying to get the best spots in the great mass of human life. It probably wasn't the _best _event to see, but they were here for a reason. "Right then, something very important." He said, turning to face the both of them. "You can't rewrite history! Not one line! We must never get involved in the affairs of other peoples or planets."

Rose got an odd look on her face. "But, Doctor..." She was already thinking about Dickens, about the Gelth - about how they had given him a renewed sense of the world. Sure, he had never gotten to finish the story their adventure had inspired, but they had undoubtedly changed him.

"What's that?" The Doctor wondered aloud, before Rose could finish, moving over to a white retaining wall. "That's not right."

Amy was now considering the difficulties of time travel. She followed after the strange alien in the leather jacket and the blonde teenager, wanting to figure out how he did it. "So we're like a wildlife documentary, yeah? Because if they see a wounded little cub or something, they can't just save it, they've got to keep filming and let it die. It's got to be hard. I don't think I could do that. Don't you find that hard, being all, like, detached and cold?"

The Doctor ignored her, investigating a long crack in the retaining wall. He ran his fingers along it, trying to solve the mystery that was giving a twisted grin at him, taunting him to find the answer. "Rose, block me from view, would you? I need to use the sonic." Okay, so he was interfering a little, but something had already caused a change, because this crack was not supposed to be here.

Rose quickly stood in front of the Doctor's arms, blocking the view of anyone who might turn around and look at the man. The familiar excitement of an adventure was starting to build. "What is it, Doctor?"

"It's a crack." The Doctor answered. "A crack that shouldn't be here."

Amy leaned down to inspect it. "There was a crack almost identical to this in my bedroom wall in Leadworth." She admitted. "It used to terrify me but then it became comforting somehow." She reached out to run her fingers along the crack.

The Doctor's free hand reached out and grabbed her wrist mere millimetres from the anomaly in the stone face of the wall. His manic smile was gone as he looked into her hazel eyes. "This is not just a crack in a wall somewhere." He said, quite seriously. "Look at it, Amy. This wall is solid and the crack doesn't go all the way through it. So here's the thing. Where's the draught coming from?"

Amy's eyebrows knitted. "Prisoner Zero has escaped." She whispered, almost to herself.

"What?" Rose repeated, struggling to hear.

Amy shook her head. "Never mind, it's nothing." She was the only one who ever heard it, after all. Aunt Sharon told her she was ridiculous.

Rose rolled her eyes. "So where's the draught coming from?"

The Doctor released Amy's wrist and quickly circled the wall once, before coming to stand in front of the crack again. "If you knocked this wall down, the crack would stay put, because the crack isn't in the wall."

"Of course it's in the wall, it's right there!" Rose said in confusion.

"Where is it then?" Amy said at the same time.

The Doctor looked up at them, face serious. "Everywhere. In everything. It's a split in the skin of the world. Two parts of space and time that should never have touched, pressed together..." He pressed his ear to the wall and frowned.

"So how do we fix it?" Rose asked, slightly more concerned by how serious the Doctor had gone when moments before he had been excited to show them 1963.

The Doctor didn't answer, putting his sonic to the wall and attempting to open the crack. When he did, however, he sprang back, horrified as time energy, blinding white and all-consuming began to spill out through the slight opening he made. He pulled his sonic back, watching as it snapped shut.

"Doctor?" Rose said worriedly. "What happened? What was that?"

The Doctor looked at her, as if just realising she was there. "The end of the universe."

"How can a crack in a wall be the end of the universe?" Amy asked, eyes wide as she stared, as if still transfixed by the light she had seen. "All we saw was a light."

"What you saw was pure time energy." The Doctor admitted. "Pure energy gorging itself on important time-space events, and we have to fix this one."

Rose looked around. "So, what is the big event? What do we have to fix?"

The Doctor looked at all the people milling around, and started heading back to the TARDIS, trusting the two companions to follow him. "November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas - the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, thirty-fifth president of the United States."

Rose considered that. "I saw a picture of this!" She remembered. "When I looked you up online. This bloke, Clive, collected stuff of you in his shed. He had a picture of you in the crowds at the assassination!" She smiled slightly, tongue peeking out from between her teeth. "So we have to save him, right?"

As they reached the familiar blue police box, The Doctor turned to look at them, face grim. "No," he said quietly. "We have to make sure he dies."


	7. Green Grass: Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Doctor Who, I just play in the sandbox.

**Author's Note:** I'm sorry this took so long to get up! We should be back to normal, quicker updates after this. Thanks to everyone for their patience, further, there is another note at the bottom where you can help decide which one of Ten's adventures I rewrite first. :)

* * *

Rose had stilled, staring at the Doctor's back. "What? What do you mean we have to make sure he dies?" Sure, people died, and sure, the assassination of John F. Kennedy was in her textbooks at school, but that didn't mean the man had to die did it? He had a life, a family. It was one thing to read about someone dying in a history book and another to purposely cause his death - to murder him. "That's not what we do, Doctor! We don't kill people!"

"Could have fooled me." Amy muttered under her breath.

Rose really wanted to hit the other girl, but she refrained. "What are you on about?"

Amy looked at her in amazement. "The couple hundred people who died because you had to go and touch the Metaltron...Dalek...whatever?"

"That was an accident!" Rose defended. "It was in pain, I didn't know it would do that." She crossed her arms over her chest. "That's completely different from...from murder."

The Doctor was becoming increasingly afraid that Rose, for all her innocence and empathy had drawn him to her, might not be able to handle what he had seen and done. If she reacted like this to a historical event, how could she look at him the same way if she knew he had killed all of his people? His throat felt dry and his respiratory bypass was threatening to kick in, but he swallowed and took wither companion by the shoulder and led them into the TARDIS. "Let's talk about this inside, shall we?"

The doors closed behind them firmly, and The Doctor let out a breath. "I was being honest when I said we can't change time. That president has to die, has to be shot from his motorcade."

Rose looked at him, eyes brimming with all that emotion, all that humanness that had drawn him to her in the first place. "What about Charles Dickens? You said time was fluid, that I could die there, despite being born in a different century."

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets. "Most of time is fluid, and changeable - but there are times, like hinges, that must remain the same. Temporal tipping points - what has happened, what will happen, must always happen." He looked at rose, begging with his eyes for her to understand. "John Kennedy has to die out there, on November 22, 1963, John Kennedy must always die."

"What happens if he doesn't?" Rose challenged. "What if this time, he lives? Just this one time?" She looked over at the wall, refusing to cry in front of Amy, especially over some man she would never meet who had died before she was born.

The Doctor sighed, trying to make Rose understand. "Two different versions of the same event, both happening in the same moment. Time split wide open." He took Rose's hand. "All of time will die. Billions on billions will suffer and die to save one life."

Rose shook her head, trying her hardest to understand. "How can you decide?" She looked up at him. "How do you look at one person and know they have to die?"

The Doctor had no way he wanted to answer. In the old days, running around with the UNIT boys he wouldn't have minded as much, there were other Time Lords whose entire lives were wrapped up in preventing paradoxes and ensuring the safety of time. Now, because of his actions, because he had made a decision exactly like this one, he was the only one, and the suffocating responsibility came down entirely on his shoulders. He swallowed hard. "Because I'm the only one who can. I'm the only person who survived. The only one left - I have to do it all."

Rose let out a choked sound and hugged him hard. "All right."

* * *

That was how Rose found herself stepping out of the TARDIS on a space station of some alien-like aliens, creatures that were thin and tall, with long arms and blue-grey skin, sunken, arched cheekbones and a sharp pointed chins.

The Doctor found himself faced with a race he knew well, and the salutes and grasping hands reaching out to touch his clothes from the Nibiruns. "I wish to speak with the Chancellor, friends." One of the soldiers, nodded, and reached out an arm. "Your companions will be led to the women's palace, while you meet with the Chancellor."

"What?" Amy said, speaking up for the first time in ages. "Doctor?"

The Doctor turned to his companions and explained. "Women aren't permitted to see the Chancellor, even alien women." He smiled. "So you two will get to be pampered and fawned over in the best spa in this star system, when I deal with setting everything up."

"I'd rather go with you than be pampered." Amy said firmly.

"Hey," The Doctor said firmly. "I won't leave without you, go with Rose and the Nibiruns and relax some. We usually don't have a chance to relax usually - there's normally more running than spas. It'll be fine."

* * *

And that was how Amelia Pond found herself on an alien space station in the Sirius star system in 1963, trying to relax in a sort of seaweed wrap with someone she was sure hated her and wished she was still in 2012, perhaps buried under the concrete that filled van Statten's underground complex. This was perhaps the most awkward thing she had ever endured.

"How come your just okay with this?" Rose asked, breaking the stony silence as one of the priestesses gave her feet some sort of massage to her feet with some sort of spiky flowers that took off dead skin. "This whole...making sure..." She couldn't even say it, even if she was helping, even if she was here because The Doctor knew the Chancellor would want to send someone to take the shot.

Amy shifted carefully, looking away for a moment. The tight self-constricting seaweed was not going to let her get away from this conversation. She sighed. "My parents died when I was seven."

"What?" Rose repeated. "What does that have to do with the American president?"

Amy looked sideways at Rose. "Don't you get it? If my parents hadn't died, I would have been a completely different person."

Rose blinked. "No you wouldn't, you'd have the same DNA and everything."

"Nature versus nurture." Amy explained. "If I hadn't grown up with an absent aunt, the only Scottish girl in a sleepy English village, made fun of for being too smart, too mouthy - then I would have never taken the job with van Statten and I wouldn't be here right now."

Rose had never thought of things like that. "So what would you be doing if your parents lived?"

Amy shrugged as much as the wrap allowed her to shrug. "I don't know...maybe I'd be an artist, or a hacker, or maybe I'd have actually gone to University of Aberdeeen like my Da and become...I don't know, a neurosurgeon - but I don't know because I didn't grow up in Scotland, all because of one event - one tragic event, where their car got hit by a drunk driver while they were coming back to pick me up from my aunt's house." Her voice was shaking and she took a deep breath. "So, if one tragedy could change my life that much, and change the lives of the people I interacted with, I can see how one tragedy that goes down in history, that influences hundreds of lives, like ripples in a pond, could cause time to break down." She hadn't even realised her voice had been getting louder and louder, and took another shaky deep breath. "So yeah, I might not be okay with this, with helping a murder - but I realise why it has to happen."

Rose watched, suddenly understanding Amy more than before and more than she really wanted to understand. It made her want to like Amy even more. Amy had saved her life, and now Amy had shared pain with her - pain that Rose understood more than the other girl could have known. She didn't want to like her. She had been actively trying not to like her. After all, Amy had swanned on to the TARDIS and been all smiles with the Doctor, who had invited her aboard without so much as asking if Rose was okay with it. Sure, they weren't a couple and it was his ship, but it still bothered her. Deep down she knew she was jealous. She wanted to be with the Doctor, and she couldn't help but feel as though Amy was competition. Damn it, she really didn't want to like her.

But..."My dad died when I was a baby." She admitted. "Seventh of November, 1987 - the day that two of my parents friends got married. He was picking up a wedding present, a vase." She blinked her eyes. "Hit and run driver. I don't even have memories of him."

Amy, in sympathy, as the priestesses unwrapped her, reached out and squeezed Rose's hand. "I can't even really remember their faces." She said softly. "I can remember things, but not their faces."

"We're a mess." Rose said, wanting to stop talking about it, stop thinking about it.

"We are." Amy agreed.

* * *

After they were done being pampered, and the Doctor had finished his meetings they were joined in the TARDIS by one of the Nibirun generals, who explained how JFK had ordered an off-course spacecraft on a training mission for Nibirun teenagers that had crashed in 40 miles from an United States Air Force Base, rather than answering the distress call. His son had been one of those killed, and he had been chosen for the mission. Rose tried to avoid him, hiding in the wardrobe, while Amy brought tea and tried to make small talk. They dropped him off near the grassy knoll, and then went back to seconds after they had left, walking far more seriously to the motorcade route.

Rose kept holding her breath as the black car approached, but at the last minute, she couldn't watch and looked away.

Amy swallowed hard, but unlike Rose, she couldn't look away. She stood transfixed to the sight, in full sound and colour. As Jackie went up over the back of the car for a piece of her husband's skull, she felt lightheaded and grabbed The Doctor's hand for support and squeezed. He probably needed it as much as she did. "Gotcha." She whispered under her breath, not knowing if he could even hear in all the chaos.

The Doctor looked over at her, and squeezed back. "Gotcha."

* * *

**Author's Note 2:** So, I have the next two stories almost complete, but I would like my readers' input on future adventures! so would you rather see "Blink" from Nine, Rose, and Amy's perspective or a fob-watched Nine in Edwardian England, similar (but in no way identical to) Human Nature/Family of Blood? Please, feel free to PM me or respond in reviews, etc.


	8. 0900 Hours: Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Doctor Who. If I did, things would be very different.

**Author's Note:** I meant to get this up on Sunday, but my new school term starts today, so getting ready kind of ate my weekend! Apologies to all.

* * *

The Doctor was becoming unsurprised to walk into the console room late in the night cycle and find Amy already there. After a few days in the vortex since the assassination of President Kennedy for the three time travellers to recover, and each day he had woken to find his companion painting her nails, reading, or scribbling in a notebook. This morning, she seemed to be sketching. He tried to slide behind her to see what she was drawing, but she angled her sketchbook away.

"Good morning, Doctor." Amy said with a grin, as she hid her drawing.

"Good morning, Amy." The Doctor replied, deciding to play it cool and move over to the console. "What are you drawing this morning?"

"The TARDIS." Amy replied, just as the console lit up as if pleased to have her portrait done. "Well, the console anyway."

The Doctor looked around the room. "Why?" He ignored the buzzing from the console which he took to be the TARDIS equivalent of blowing a raspberry in his direction.

Amy glanced up from her drawing in amusement. "Did my nails already," she offered up, showing off the pinkish-rose-gold tone that had replaced yesterday's chocolate brown, "I raided the wardrobe for the day, and thought I'd catch up on my sketches." She flipped the pages of her sketchpad, closing it. "I like sketching things so I can remember like I saw them the first time."

The Doctor nodded, he understood that. "When you're my age, when you travel as long as I have, when you've done the things I've done - all you tend to see is the facts and the tragedy of it all. When everything's new, you see the wonder of it all." He watched as Amy tilted her head, looking at him as if she had never seen him before. The gaze made him slightly uncomfortable and he shifted, moving around the console, busying himself with tinkering. "So, what would you like to do today? I think it's about time we land again."

"Anywhere?" Amy asked, sketches forgotten as she jumped up in interest.

"Anywhere, anywhen!" The Doctor replied, with that infectious voice, deciding to think about the future and not the past.

Amy considered that, leaning forward to watch his movements around the console. "Well, we've been to the past and seen the present, both on Earth...can we see another planet?" Before he could answer, she continued on. "We saw the stars, but can we can go to another planet?"

"Of course!" The Doctor said with a laugh. "There are thousands of planets out there - Catrigan Nova and it's whirlpools of gold, Centauri Seven and it's purple-sand beaches, the living forests of Cheem,.." He turned in a circle and hit a button. "And those are just some that start with the letter C!"

Amy's eyes glittered with the pictures he painted with his words. "Any of it! All of it!" She resisted the urge to clap in excitement.

"Fantastic!" The Doctor said in amusement. "Go get dressed and wake Rose, while I land the Old Girl."

Amy started towards her room, but then paused. "And then we'll go to another planet?"

"Promise!" The Doctor said firmly.

Amy quickly rushed towards her room and dressed, and then headed towards Rose's room, which, oddly enough, was in a different corridor than hers. She figured it was because Rose came first but then the TARDIS had a habit of shuffling rooms, at least according to The Doctor. Living in a spaceship was interesting, but living in a spaceship that was _living _was even more fascinating. Just as she reached Rose's door, however, the TARDIS pitched hard with a loud whine, throwing her into the doorway just as Rose emerged, sending them both sprawling.

Rose groaned as she got up from where she had fallen. "What's going on?" There was an edge to her voice, but she chalked it up to getting a bony elbow to the gut as they fell.

"The Doctor _said_ we were going to another planet." Amy said in confusion as she picked herself up and brushed off her denim skirt. "Seems like something is wrong though."

"He did?" Rose asked excitedly. She hadn't yet been to another planet either. Space station, yes. Planet? No. "Some aliens are just so...alien."

Amy rolled her eyes at that. "And to them, you look alien." She smiled anyway and joined Rose on the journey back to the console room of the TARDIS, which had gone from the quiet of night flight in the time vortex to the flurry of activity that accompanied landing almost anywhere. She sped up and the two girls took places around the console, watching in barely-disguised amazement.

"Bit rough, today." The Doctor said, sounding slightly cross. "But here we are, Catrigan Nova." He pushed either girl on the back. "Go, see the pools of liquid gold."

Amy reached the door first and opened it, sticking her head out briefly, before pulling it back and snapping the door shut, arms crossed over her chest. "Is this supposed to be a hint?"

"What?" The Doctor asked, eyes knit in confusion. He didn't understand what she was asking. He could only tell that she looked upset.

"Do you want me gone? Did I say something wrong, or mess up somehow?" Amy repeated, blinking her hazel eyes and biting the inside of her cheek to cling to anger. "Is this because I wouldn't show you my sketches?"

Rose was sick of this, just because her legs were shorter and she hadn't made it to the door before the redhead. "What are you on about?"

Amy turned, opened the doors wide and sighed. "Welcome to Leadworth, England, and very much Earth."

The Doctor looked perplexed, checking the coordinates he had put in the console, and then shaking his head. "Something powerful must have pulled us off course." He grinned a bit, the adrenaline of a new adventure getting to him. "Fantastic!"

"In _Leadworth_?" Amy said in a tone that suggested he was acting even more insane than usual. "Nothing happens here, ever." She shook her head. "The last interesting thing that happened in Leadworth was when I punched Jeff in the throat for ruining my kissogram audition."

"Kissogram?" The Doctor repeated.

"You go to parties and kiss people...in outfits...for a laugh!" Amy said defensively. "Before I was recruited by van Statten it was my plan to get enough money to get out of here."

Rose snorted. "You were a stripper!"

"Kissogram, and I didn't get the job, thanks to Jeff." Amy defended herself, glaring at Rose. She turned to the Doctor, looking defeated. "We're stayinig to figure out what's going on, aren't we?"

"Of course!" The Doctor said, as if it was never a question.

Amy sighed again, and walked up through her back garden, letting Rose and The Doctor follow. She reached the door and checked under the mat, not that she was expecting her aunt to have remembered to put the spare back. Sure enough, the only thing under the mat was a dead leaf. With a roll of her eyes, she reached into the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a hairpin, and set to picking the lock as had been her habit since adolescence.

"What are you doing?" Rose demanded. "We can't just break in to someone's house, they could have us arrested for trespassing!"

Amy grinned as she opened the door wide for the two of them. "Trust me, I'm not going to press charges on my ride out of here."

That stopped Rose, and her brow knitted in confusion. "This is your house?"

"Last time I checked." Amy said cheerfully, following The Doctor inside and flipping on the lights. "I'm the one who paid off the mortgage at any rate."

"Why don't you have keys to your own house?" Rose asked, looking around at the fairly large house, and comparing it to the council estate where she had grown up.

Amy opened the fridge and began chucking out food that had gone off since the last time Aunt Sharon had bothered checking it. "I did, but my keys are buried under solid concrete in Utah."

"Oh..." Rose said, leaving the kitchen and heading into the living room. "So it's just empty? Why don't you sell it?"

"Technically," Amy replied, defensively. "My Aunt Sharon lives here when she bothers to come home from work or whatever boyfriend's place she has now - not that it's any of your business." She was sensitive about Aunt Sharon - she knew the woman wasn't the best guardian in the world, but she was the only family Amy had, and she had done her best raising her with little to no help.

The Doctor was going about the room, glancing over trinkets and playing with the silly drinking bird that Amy had gotten Aunt Sharon for Christmas when she was nine. "What could have pulled us here?" He asked. "There's something wrong...something feels off...but I don't know what it is." He went into the next room, searching for the anomaly, the thing that could have pulled his TARDIS to his newest companion's house. "I'm missing it."

"So why did you leave?" Rose called, following behind the Doctor, as Amy stayed in the living room, sorting the mail. "Seems like you had it pretty good here, compared to working for that arse."

"The grass is always greener." Amy said, shaking her head. "Leadworth is some people's idea of paradise, but it was never mine." As she picked up a bill, she had to drop it just as quickly as Rose's scream filled the house.

Shocked, and half-wondering if a wandering alien who _wasn't_ The Doctor had taken up residence in her house. If so, she would be incredibly cross and possibly charge it rent. What she found, however, was Rose, screaming in the hallway over the prone form of The Doctor. On the other side of them stood...

"Amy?!"

"Rory?!" Sure enough, there stood Rory Williams, in his scrubs, guiltily holding a cricket bat, over the unconscious alien. "What did you do? What are you doing here?"

Rory coloured in embarrassment. "I saw lights on here...I didn't know you were home, I thought maybe someone had broken in."

"Technically, she did." Rose felt the need to point out, from where she had dropped to her knees to check The Doctor's wounds. "She lost her keys."

Amy took the opportunity to childlishly imitate Rose's tongue-between-the-teeth smile and then stick her tongue out at the back of Rose's head. "So you came over here with a cricket bat to take on a burglar?"

If it was possible, Rory would have coloured further. "There was a strange, rough-looking man in your house, and you never called to say you were coming back - what was I supposed to think?"

"Rough?" Came the voice from the floor, as The Doctor sat up, rubbing his head. "Do you think?"

"Are you all right?" Rose asked worriedly. "You went down pretty fast."

"I got hit with a cricket bat!" The Doctor defended. "Who is he anyway?"

"Doctor, Rory Williams." Amy introduced, with a little dismissive wave. "Rose, go grab an ice pack out of the freezer." She then turned back to the two men. "Rory's my best friend." She reached over and ruffled Rory's hair, while he tried to maintain some sort of dignity. "Rory, this is The Doctor." She paused as Rose reappeared with the ice pack, trying to put it on the Doctor's head. The Doctor however, was distracted. "And that's Rose, the three of us have been traveling lately."

Rory was squirming. "Er...can I check you're head? I hit you pretty hard, Doctor..." He trailed off and put the cricket bat down quickly. "I'm a nurse."

"A nurse?" Rose repeated, in a questioning voice that Amy had heard before and did not tolerate about Rory's choice of profession. A quick kick to the shin had Rose glaring at her instead of asking.

"Er...yeah. Guilty." Rory answered, waving a little.

"Nah, takes more than a little knock to break this brain." The Doctor said easily, to the obviously guilty man.

Rory didn't look like he quite believed it, but he wasn't about to argue. Instead, he decided to focus on the person in the room he knew. "So, you came back for the reunion then?"

_WHAM._

Amy's hand came down hard on the radiator. "You not only brought me back to _Leadworth_, you brought me back in perfect time for my high school reunion? You _so_ owe me, Doctor."

"Cricket bat!" The Doctor said, defending himself.

"Gold whirlpools!" Amy argued back.

"Cricket bat!"

"I was voted most likely to get arrested!"

"Cricket...wait, really?" The Doctor said, stopping mid-defense, in interest.

"Really." Rory said, completely serious.

The Doctor considered that. "Okay, you win."

Amy didn't even pause. "Good, then you can be my escort, and Rose can go with Rory."

"Wait, what?" Rose and Rory asked together - one in horror and the other in surprise.

"All right then." The Doctor agreed, thinking maybe this reunion was why he was here. Maybe something was going to happen. One never knew. "Sounds like fun!"


	9. 0900 Hours: Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: **I do not own Doctor Who, I am not affiliated with the BBC and am making no money from this work of fiction.

**Author's Note:** I am so sorry this chapter took so long! That shouldn't happen again, and I hope there are still people out there interested in this story.

Rose looked at Rory.

Rory looked at Rose.

Amy flitted off toward the way they came in, and Rose heard the screen door close behind her, undoubtedly intending to spend time finding something to wear to the unmitigated disaster that would be this reunion. The Doctor, surprisingly unbothered, likely too preoccupied with the mystery to think about the signals he was sending or why going to Amy's reunion with her was a horrible idea, wandered off in the opposite direction, screwdriver bleeping as he attempted to figure out why they were here.

Rose was beginning to think the TARDIS hated her.

The man in front of her cleared his throat, bringing her attention back to him. "So you and Amy are close then, huh?"

The question itself made Rose boggle at how ridiculous it was. How could he think that? "Did you miss the bit where she just kicked me?" If her voice was a bit shrill, well it was a very unexpected question.

"Well, no," Rory allowed. "But you were commenting on my job, and the last person who did that had a heel inserted somewhere...unpleasant." He flushed a bit pink. "Amy's a bit protective of me." Returning to the more obvious stream of conversation, Rory shrugged. "And she only kicked you a little, so she must think you're friends."

That stilled Rose's anger for a minute. Were they friends? Amy had saved her life, and they had shared each other's pain about losing parents. Did that make them friends? It was sort of hard to tell. "She make a habit of kicking her girlfriends?" Rose asked instead, trying to get a better feel for the situation.

Rory shrugged at the question. "Don't know, she's never had one before."

"What, never?" Rose asked, gawping at the nurse in his scrubs, still holding the cricket bat.

Rory considered the question carefully. "The mums in town used to make their kids play with her when we were little, but they always used to tease her for her stories and her accent, by middle school she was always pulling pranks or getting in fights, and by high school all the boys noticed her enough to make all the girls hate her...so...not really." He shrugged a little. "As far as mates, it's pretty much always been me and Amy." He paused then, and his face twisted as if biting a lemon. "And Jeff, sometimes."

"That's the one who ruined her kissogram audition, yeah?"

"Yeah." Rory agreed. "And she punched him in the throat, so...kicking girlfriends is not that much of a stretch."

"Huh." Rose managed, still deciding on whether they were friends or not. She wasn't exactly what she normally looked for in a friend, but it couldn't hurt, could it?

* * *

"Amy!" The Doctor called from somewhere in the house, making Rose leave the cup of tea Rory had made her after they had moved from the hallway. Making the conscious decision not to be jealous, she pushed her chair back from the mail-laden table, and headed for the door that they had come through and the TARDIS.

Amy was easily found in the TARDIS wardrobe, among a minefield of high heels that had been obviously tried on and discarded. "Amy!" Rose called as she caught some movement behind a rack of evening gowns. "I think The Doctor found something, he was calling for you." Rose picked up a metallic gold high heel. "Did you leave any for me?"

"We don't wear the same size!" Amy called from the depths of the wardrobe, grumbling as she moved toward the door. "Right after I find the right shoes, of course." She sat down on one of the cushy benches near the door and slid off some black, rhinestone-covered heels and put her boots back on her feet. "Have fun in the wardrobe!" She suggested, heading back to the house.

* * *

Amy found Rory in the hallway, looking about nervously, but luckily sans cricket bat, while The Doctor was, embarrassingly, in her childhood bedroom. "Are my plastic dinosaurs a danger to reality?" She joked, looking worriedly into the room.

"Amy!" The Doctor said, looking up at her. "There you are!" He was kneeling on her bed, examining the crack in the wall in the sky blue paint. "There's a crack in this wall."

"Oh, it's the crack again." Rory said, coming up beside Amy in the doorway.

"I know." Amy said, firmly ignoring Rory. "I told you before, Doctor, when we were in Dallas."

The Doctor did remember that, and how he had grabbed her wrist from touching the crack. "Amy, this is serious. How long has it been here?"

Amy's brow wrinkled. She knew he wouldn't ask if he didn't think it was important, but she felt defensive anyway. She had been dragged to several psychiatrists over the crack before she learned to shut her mouth and not talk about it. "I don't know, sixteen years at least. As long as I can remember. It was here when I got here."

The Doctor looked at Amy seriously, grabbing her hand and pulling her over to the wall. "This crack, here, just like this?"

Amy wanted to be a smartarse, but she could tell that The Doctor was serious, and even after only knowing him a short time, she trusted him. She took a deep breath and looked right at the crack, and ran her fingers along the Glasgow smile that ran by her old bed. It was unchanged. "Just like this." She confirmed. "It's just a crack."

The Doctor stared a moment. It made no sense. His screwdriver had matched the energy coming from the the crack as identical to the energy from the crack in 1963. Then, something clicked. "You said it used to terrify you, Why?"

Amy shied away from The Doctor as much as she possibly could without moving her feet. "It was just an anxious young girl displacing her abandonment issues from the loss of her parents and anxiety from being displaced from the home she knew onto a perceived imperfection in the strange place she found herself." She said it in a clinical voice, as if it were something she had learned by rote, all in the third person.

"Now, I don't believe any of that." The Doctor said firmly. "You're the girl who made a Dalek grieve and threw her shoes at it. You're dead clever. What was it, Amy?"

Amy struggled for a moment, anyone could see that, from the set of her jaw and the tick in her cheek. "I went to four psychiatrists over that stupid wall."

"Amy." The Doctor said seriously, placing a hand on her shoulder. "I'm the farthest thing from a psychiatrist you'll ever meet."

"Prisoner Zero has escaped." Amy said finally, glaring past him at the offending wall. "Every night, but it stopped ages ago. It stopped by the time I finished primary."

"Never anything else?" The Doctor asked, just to be sure.

"Just that." Amy confirmed.

The Doctor looked back at the crack and pointed his sonic screwdriver at it. The crack gaped open, and for just a moment, there was an echo, the exact words Amy had repeated, but it came out distorted. "_Prisoner Zero has escaped."_ The crack opened into a gaping hole of pure time energy, which was exactly what The Doctor had been afraid of behind that crack. He frowned as he let it snap closed.

"What is that?" Rory asked in amazement. "It really did say it. It was just a game..." He flustered, gesturing with his hands. "How did the crack in the wall just talk?"

Amy looked over at Rory, and smiled at him, which was apparently distracting enough. "Don't you want to go get ready for the reunion, Rory?" She said, twisting a curl around her finger. "Go on, I swear I'm safe."

"Uh...oh...okay." Rory said slowly. "Call me if you need me."

"Absolutely." Amy agreed. "We'll meet you here at seven." She watched Rory leave and sighed in relief, not sure how to explain everything going on in her life to her best friend, and turned back to find herself nose-to-nose with The Doctor.

"You're still here." He said, as if she were a puzzle.

"Yeah..." Amy said, without blinking. "You promised me a planet, remember? I'm not going anywhere until I get a planet."

The Doctor smiled at that, but it didn't reach his ice-blue eyes. "No, I mean...whatever was on the other side of that wall got eaten by the time energy years ago. It's been seeping through that wall probably since you stopped hearing the voice, but the crack consumed at least one person in Dallas in less than a day, but not you. It's been seeping into you, Amy Pond."

Amy felt her throat close up. "What does that mean?"

The Doctor shook his head, unsure. "I don't know. But we'll figure it out. We will."


End file.
